Logic

Oh stop. You would.

Welp... Was into the ticket-buying screen ONE MINUTE after ticket sales opened up for the Hollywood Bowl shows. All that was available was "verified re-sale" and "platinum" tickets for hundreds of dollars over face value. I know it's not a new revelation that Ticketmaster is a heinous, disgusting organization, but what I want to know is...how do they get away with it year after year? It's just amazing that there hasn't been any intervention to stop this obvious monopoly and their obviously unfair business practices. Sorry. Done venting. Happy for anyone that got tickets. Seems like many/most east coast shows were no problem at all. Just so frustrated that there often is no chance in hell of actual humans beating out re-sale robots and acquiring face value concert tickets. It gets so damned old.

Yes. Last March, when I was furloughed at work, I started doing daily walks around the neighborhood. Somewhere between 20 and 45 minutes. I found that I liked it quite a bit, and well...furlough stretched on and on. Here we are, 14 months later, and rarely does a day go by that doesn't see me taking some kind of walk. I do NOT, however, enjoy running. Have given it a legitimate, sustained try several times. It's not for me. I've got an exercise bike in the living room instead that I can point at the TV and ride for 40 minutes or so while watching old football highlights or something.

Uh-oh. First Charles Grodin, now Rennie Stennett. Rule of Threes. Who will be next? Somebody go lock Betty White inside her house.

I guess the Bills are considering running an all-returner offensive package. It could certainly rival the excitement caused by the vaunted Joe Webb Package.

As to the first bolded: Yes. If you want to close your eyes and feel like you're actually at a prime era Grateful Dead show, DSO is the way to go. Even the crowd vibe and venues chosen often harken back to the 70s Dead. I'm convinced that DSO sometimes plays Dead shows better than the Dead played them. I know that's a controversial statement, but I hold to it. For one thing, DSO does not, as far as I'm aware, have all of the "extra stuff" to distract them: drug addictions, groupies, dealers, Hell's Angels, John Belushi doing eightballs in the dressing room, etc.. For another, they don't have much margin for error. Whereas the Dead got a pass from Deadheads to be "on" some nights and "off" for others, DSO doesn't get such a pass. If they kept playing stinkers, they wouldn't keep selling tickets or having the credibility they do. Certainly a good night of DSO is better than the last couple years of the Grateful Dead, which was sad due to Jerry's addiction and was often musically awful. As to the second bolded: So much yes. Oteil has a beautiful voice. He also has much more genuine soul than Mayer, in my opinion. The old quote about "the skill of a singer comes down not to how skillfull his voice his, but by how much he can convince you he is telling the truth" comes to mind. I BELIEVE Oteil when he sings. I don't know that I believe Mayer. For as skillful a musician as he may be, no part of me believes that he has the emotional depth to embody much of the Dead canon in the way that Jerry did. Oteil DOES seem to have that depth, AND he has a more harmonically pleasant voice. The only songs Mayer should sing, in my opinion, are the old Pigpen blues tunes like "Hurts Me Too" or "Next Time You See Me". He's a blues singer, so let him sing the blues. Leave everything else to the guys who mean it.

Mahomes Brady Rodgers Wilson Watson

Yeah. I was taken aback. This was supposed to have been the last opportunity to say something to the assembled Deadhead community (at least as the “core four” unit) that had been paying your bills and supporting your art for a half century......and “hopefully everyone can move on and do something better with their lives” was what he came up with? I love Phil, and I’m guessing he’s probably a great and generous person if you get to know him. But he has sure been painted as (and has come off as) quite the curmudgeon in recent years. And for what it’s worth, in terms of playing Dead music in an original, exciting way and at the proper tempos, I prefer DSO and probably even Joe Russo’s Almost Dead these days. Dead and Co shows are still church for me, though. Still the waning days of a one-of-a-kind and never to be duplicated gathering of the tribes. Still a chance to see three musicians who have meant so much to my life get up on stage and search for the muse.

Agreed. Based on interviews with other band members from that summer and from Joel Selvin's book "Fare Thee Well", It seems clear to me that just about everyone in the band wanted to do east coast shows except Phil Lesh. Frankly, it seemed like most of the guys wanted to do a full 50th anniversary TOUR. Phil was the exception, apparently. It was like pulling teeth to even get him to be willing to to the Soldier Field shows, and then again to get him to agree to the Santa Clara "warm up" shows. He also apparently was very difficult during rehearsals. It put Trey Anastasio and Bruce Hornsby in a weird spot, having to learn/rehearse a 100-song songbook but only getting to go through every song once. In general, there have been tensions and disagreements among the band -- primarily between Phil and the drummers, hence Dead and Co featuring everyone but Phil -- since Jerry passed. Sad, really. I went to the Fare Thee Well shows, and of all the post-Jerry iterations I've seen over the years (Ratdog, Phil and Friends, the Dead, Further, Dead and Co), they were my least favorite shows, musically speaking. The weekend was a great deal of fun and and a cool celebration, and I don't regret going. But the lack of rehearsal and the uneasy peace amongst the members was evident to me. Phil's stepping up to the mic on the last night and saying "now hopefully we can all move on and do something different with our lives" left a bad taste in my mouth. Not "Thank you", not "we love you", just "enough already. Let's all move on". I love Phil Lesh, but everything I've ever read on the subject suggests he's been a bit of a dictator since Jerry passed. I always think of Mickey Hart's comment on the subject: "When Phil received a liver transplant, he must have gotten the liver of a jerk".

Is that right? I guess I'm not surprised. The NYC area has been a Deadhead hotspot since at least 1970. Even though the Dead are a west coast band, they've always made most of their money and seem to have their most large and loyal legions of fans on the east coast. I'm gonna do my best to get tickets early, but I don't want to be roped in by the pumped up price hustle of the "verified fan pre-sale" if I can help it. I'm a bit scarred by the 2015 "Fare Thee Well" Soldier Field ticket buying experience, though, so my FOMO panic may get the better of me.

For what it’s worth, I DO think this tour will sell really well. I’m willing to bet that lots of people have pent up “want to hear live music” energy after this past year. Still, I don’t think Dead and Co typically sell out most venues.

Dan Campbell and Urban Meyer are both gonna be bad NFL head coaches.

Thanks for the link. **Not sure if it was an auto-correct situation or a simple error, but the Patriots do not have a "Max Jones" on the roster. It's Mac, which is short for McCorkle.

$136 a piece for LAWN SEATS!?!? There is no universe in which I will be willing to pay that cost to see this band. Maybe if they exhume Jerry Garcia and find a way to get him to play lead guitar. Other than that? Not a chance in hell. I'll just have to wait and see if they go on sale at a more reasonable, defensible price. Sheesh.

You can deal with "what ifs" and abstracts if you like. I'll stick with reality, with facts. The reality, the fact, is this: Kelvin Benjamin made plays that helped the Bills win an important football game. That happened.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Tre White is my favorite Buffalo Bill. Great player, great member of the community, great man, and the funniest dude I've ever seen lace up a pair of cleats. McDermott couldn't have chosen a better player to be the first draft choice of his Bills tenure, and I'm so thankful that Tre White is a Buffalo Bill.

Man... Choosing to constantly, repeatedly, obsessively harp on the handful of bad decisions made by the best front office/coaching staff the Bills have had in 25 years — one whose team has made the playoffs 3 out of 4 years and seem poised for a decade long run of success, and who have made far more good decisions than bad — sure is a strange way to spend one’s time. McDermott and Whaley needed only three seasons to take a dumpster fire of toxic ineptitude that was the laughingstock of the NFL and turn it into one of the best cultures and winningest programs in the league. The Bills went from being the absolute LAST team many wanted to play for to being a team that players take discounts to keep playing for. The turnaround has been nothing short of astounding, and yet BADOL will hop into a thread quicker than you can say “broken record” to list off all the bad decisions McBeane have made. I’m not even trying to deny that any of the decisions BADOL frequently brings up were, in fact, bad decisions. I’m simply saying that NO ONE gets it right 100% of the time, every GM and coach makes mistakes, but that choosing to rehash and re-litigate those mistakes over and over and over when the Bills got THIS good THIS fast just seems mind boggling. To each their own, but holy cow, what a strange hill to die on.

I just want to point out that I don’t think Woods or Gilmore can fairly be classified as players that McDermott “let go”. Both were free agents, and because of the Rex Ryan clown show, the Marrone ridiculousness, and the general dumpster fire atmosphere that preceded McDermott’s arrival, I don’t think any amount of money was going to get either guy to stay here. They both wanted out of Buffalo badly, and I don’t blame either one of them, and their departure had nothing to do with McDermott.

I’ll never hate on Kelvin Benjamin. He made two crucial catches in the Colts snow game that led to the Bills winning. Had the Bills lost that game, they would not have broken the drought and made the playoffs that year. Kelvin Benjamin directly contributed to a game outcome that allowed the Bills to make the playoffs. I’ll never say a negative thing about him. .....That said, it WAS pretty funny when Booger said he was one Popeye’s biscuit short of being a tight end.